http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/04/21...nk=omni_popular

Not sure if this has been news in Seattle, but in the News Tribume today the lead story was about how the police cheif misled the public about the issue of an Amber Alert for Zina Linnik. In the article, the story chronicles how the sargent at the scene had made a decision to hold back on an amber alert until a suspect was checked out. At about 4 in the morning, they found the suspect, cleared him, and called a supervisor to issue an amber alert. The supervisor who woke to take the call went back to sleep with out issuing the alert. The alert did not go out until 10 am the next day. The police cheif knew this, but made statements that the delay was due to other reasons more than once, stating they had elected to wait purposefully until they could check out other leads. At the time of the lies, they had no idea if a quicker alert would have saved her life. They now claim it would have made no difference, but again, this is after the fact. My problem with this lie is multifold. For one, if the delay could have been a factor in the eventual death of Zina (which at the time of the lie was a possibility), then it could be assumed the lie or cover up was, at least in part, to protect the department from liability? As such, what we have is a consipiracy of several officals to cover up mistakes in an attempt to limit the liability of the department and protect their jobs. By doing so, they would have been denying the rights of the Linnux family from due compensation. In my opinion, this is criminal conspiracy that easily falls into the realm of organized crime under the RICO act. Two or more people conspiring to hide the truth in an attempt to get monetary gain (keep their jobs) and to deny the rights of others. The entire thing is a fiasco, but to lie and then hide it for 4 years is sickening and makes it even worse. I feel for the supervisor who probably was so tired he was not fully conscious when he answered the phone, but to lie about it for 4 years, that is another story all together. If the family had never sued, we never would have known this. Seeing how the chief before this tipped off the city manager that his wife was being investigated by the FBI, and the chief before that killed his wife, we seem to be batting a 100% in integrity.
This area has a great record of outstanding law enforcement. One of the previous sherrifs was into child porn and rape (http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Ex-Pierce-County-sheriff-pleads-to-child-porn-1149217.php) and in the 1970's the sheriff was arrested for organized crime. The underlings have a better record, but have their moments too, from rape to murder.

In the end, if any one wonders how much I trust local law enforcement, I will just refer back to this post.